King of Thieves
by faithunbreakable
Summary: You see, the thing Neal is not, is Neal. Character study.


Disclaimer: Do not own.

A/N: White Collar OD. I'm pretty much on my deathbed, here.

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**King of Thieves**

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Neal Caffrey isn't easy to understand, everyone agrees. In fact, there are people scattered across the globe who have tried for years and failed.

Neal, is a bit like water, a bit like smoke. He flits through, touching skin and lives, and then disappears again, leaving behind nothing but a trace of scent and a small stain on someone's soul or kitchen floor.

You see, in order to know who Neal is, you first have to know who he isn't and that's where the conundrum lies. The thing Neal is not, is _Neal_.

Everything that people think of when they think of Neal is borrowed or stolen, a lie he picked up on the street, the subway, the corner-restaurant.

There's his smile, which he took from his mother. The more his father drank, the more she smiled, hiding her fear and her panic, her tears and screams behind that bright, beautiful smile that no-one ever appreciated. People called her crazy, Neal remembers, for always smiling when everyone knew her life was shit. None of them ever lifted a finger to help, mind you, but they all had their opinion and their pitying glances. Neal took that beautiful, beautiful, plastic smile from his mother, stole it away as she lay dying in a too big hospital bed, and painted it on his own face.

There are his bows, which he borrowed from an old Robin Hood movie, hand over heart, look up through your lashes. He loved that movie as a child because it made his mother stop smiling like plastic and laugh quietly. That laugh was real and he misses it still, decades later. He bowed for her sometimes and she called him her little King of Thieves.

There are his dance steps, the ones he does sometimes because they draw attention and fuddle minds. He learned those from a girl called Janie, who insisted she had Jazz in her veins and nothing but. He never managed to prove her wrong and when he was seventeen, they danced for three long, hot summer months like the world consisted on nothing but them and their bodies. And the music. He left her in the dead of night, late in September, and he took her steps with him into the world.

His skills with locks and pockets come from a guy called Rat. He met him on the streets, worked as a look-out for him a few times. In return, Rat taught him how to unlock doors, how to pick pockets and slip watches and rings off people's hands. Rat was, despite his ugly name, smooth as glass and just as transparent. No-one ever noticed him and no-one remembered him when they tried to figure out just where their wallets went. He got caught in a gang shootout when Neal was fourteen and bled to death on the street. Neal closed his eyes with agile fingers, brushed his limp hair out of his face and smoothed a hand down his shirt, taking all of Rat's skills and tricks with him as he ran from the cops.

Art. Oh, art. Neal always doodled for as long as he can remember, but it was Moz who gave him _art_. Van Gogh, Da Vinci, Monet. Rembrandt, Goya, Dali. The Dutch, the Italian, the French, the German. The famous and the underappreciated. Moz loves those things, loves every brushstroke, even if he has little talent for painting himself. After Neal more or less moves in with the man, Mozzie loves standing behind him as he copies the masterpieces of history on cheap canvas and loose paper. Neal takes Moz's love for his own because it's nice, to look at something and see beauty. Neal hasn't seen beauty since his mother laughed.

He learns manipulation and mind games from Kate. He knew how to lie and con before he met her, but she gives him a taste for the game, for twisting things until the marks are almost _happy_ to be stolen from because they all love him, just a bit. He has his mother's smile, Janie's steps, Robin Hood's bow, Moz's love for art. He makes himself irresistible and then plays his cards well, like Kate. He feels regret sometimes, unlike Kate, but he always forgets it under her hands, her kisses. He does this for Kate and their bottle-promise. And that… no, enough about Kate.

Everyone does that. Everyone takes pieces of others and makes them their own. But, you have to understand, Neal never makes these things his own. When he uses what he stole, Neal _becomes_ those he stole from.

When he smiles he is his mother, hiding everything she felt and the terror that froze her veins, the fear for her life, her son, their future. When he bows he becomes a hero, mocking and full of mischief. He dances and becomes Janie, feminine and graceful, the one all eyes are drawn to. He becomes Rat, smooth as glass, when he steals and Kate, with a tongue of gold, when he lies. He is most comfortable as Mozzie because what he took from Moz is perhaps the only _good_ thing he ever stole.

The point it, Neal is all those things and he wears them like his hats and rat pack suits. They fit him well, like Byron's old Devores, but they are still only clothes, only habits. They are the soul suit called Neal, stitched up and worn to a perfect fit.

What Neal is, at the very core of himself, isn't the King of Thieves, crowned by his mother in a dinky living room in a house that's long since been burned to the ground by his own hands.

What Neal is, is the boy who had so little, he stole his mother's smile.

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End file.
